Steve Jobs Wasn't Happy Unless Things Were 'Insanely Great' And That's Why This Tech CEO Is Passionate About Moving 'Mental Boundaries' That Withhold Perfection

Snowflake Inc. SNOW chief executive Frank Slootman says he runs his companies on the mantra the late Steve Jobs loved: a product is either "insanely great" or it's “total sh*t.”

What Happened: By erasing the gray zone, Slootman argues, leaders bulldoze mediocrity and force teams to stretch for greatness. His point lands because it echoes Jobs' own famously binary worldview

Jobs deployed the phrase inside Apple to keep designers laser-focused on polish, down to "the curve of the head of a screw." The maxim has survived long after his death and leadership writers still cite the line as shorthand for non-negotiable standards.

Slootman tells his staff that if work isn't "insanely great," he politely labels it "total sh*t" and sends it back for re-work. He pushes people to "love what we produce, not just like it," insisting passion "moves mental boundaries."

The bigger threat, he says, is not obvious laggards but comfortable “B players.” “Mediocrity is the silent killer… B players need to be pared; they either become A players, or they become C players and get flushed out.” Slootman argues Jobs' two-bucket scale is memorable, instantly understood and impossible to wiggle around: “Refusing mediocre outcomes” forces teams to raise their game or self-select out.

Why It Matters: Management thinkers note that clear, absolute language can jolt organizations out of complacency, much like Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who, according to an account by Inc.com, tells managers to fire "brilliant jerks" because "the cost to effective teamwork is too high."

Billionaire Elon Musk embraces a similar extremism. "Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week," he once told workers, pressing them toward 80-hour sprints. Jeff Bezos keeps Amazon's bar high by spending "about a third of the interview asking… can you hire great people?" — a decades-old practice meant to block average talent at the door.

Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings show Snowflake Inc. has a Momentum in the 87th percentile and Growth in the 14th percentile. Check here to see how some of the other cloud database stocks rank in terms of these metrics.